Dead Kennedys were one of the most
popular and important American hardcore punk bands of the 1980's, and in
their nine year history stirred up a good deal of controversy through their
overtly political songs and actions. The 1986-87 trial of lead singer
Jello Biafra for allegedly distributing pornography (a poster by
artist H.R. Giger that was included in the band's Frankenchrist
LP) brought worldwide attention to the band and the issue of censorship, but
unfortunately also helped lead to their demise.

Dead Kennedys (usually written without a "The") formed in July 1978 in
San Francisco, with the lineup of Biafra, vocals; Klaus Fluoride,
bass; East Bay Ray, guitar; and Bruce Slesinger (a.k.a. Ted),
drums. Biafra (real name Eric Boucher), came out to California from his
hometown of Boulder, Colorado to attend U.C. Santa Cruz, but ended up
quitting school and moving up to San Francisco after being immediately
impressed by the early San Francisco punk scene. Biafra was attracted not
only to the energy, but to the politics and "cultural terrorism" that bands
such as Negative Trend brought to their music. One of the first people
Biafra met in San Francisco was Will Shatter of Negative Trend ( and
later of the infamous Flipper), who told Biafra, "Hey, you should be
in a band. I've been playing bass for only three days and I'm in a band."

The Dead Kennedys premiered at Mabuhay Gardens, a Filipino restaurant
in San Francisco's North Beach section which served as a home to punk bands
for nearly ten years. It wasn't too long before the band gained a
considerable following around San Francisco. Live, DKs were a
combination of chaos and theatrics, with Biafra's political monologues
appearing between nearly every song. Musically, the band could be described
as a cross between the Sex Pistols and the Ventures.

In 1979 the Dead Kennedys received further attention when Jello
Biafra ran for the mayor of San Francisco. Running with his campaign
slogan "There's always room for Jello, " he finished fourth out of a field of
ten, with over 6,000 votes. Supervisor Quentin Kopp quickly had a law enacted
to ban people from running for mayor using "funny names."

That year the DKs first single was released. California Über
Alles, written to California governor Jerry Brown and what Biafra called
his brand of "Zen fascism," became an underground "hit," and subsequently
received British release on Fast Records. Unfortunately, this song was just
the first of many DK titles to be misinterpreted, and California Über
Alles became a popular slogan of young fascists. A later single Kill
the Poor, was also interpreted literally, and drew some real nasties to
Dead Kennedys shows, especially yin foreign countries, where the
sarcasm of the song was not picked up in translation.

Due to the success of California Über Alles, Dead Kennedys were
invited to perform at the Bammies, the Grammies of San Francisco, which
Biafra describes as San Francisco's "backslapping circus banquet." During
dress rehearsal, DKs ran through their current hit, but when got
onstage, they treated the audience ( full of music industry bigwigs and
mainstream rock acts such as Journey) to a scathing attack of the
music industry, in a song called "Pull My Strings" composed especially for
the occasion. The prank was a good one, and Dead Kennedys were not
invited back.

A European tour and the release of the classic Holiday in Cambodia
single furthered the DKs reputation. Their debut LP, Fresh
Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released in 1980 by IRS in the U.S.
and Cherry Red in England. The first pressings on IRS came in a orange cover.
As Biafra puts it, "Without telling us, the ruined the cover, saying 'Oh,
duh, it would make it different from the import.' Yeah, inferior to the
import, change it now!" They did, back to the black and white cover the band
submitted.

Fresh Fruit was chock full of witty
Dead Kennedys songs, including the hilarious, "Stealing People's Mail,
""Forward to Death" (written by the departed 6025), "I Kill Children" (again,
some people misinterpreted this one), a cover of Elvis's "Viva Las
Vegas" with new lyrics, and the A-sides of their first singles. The back
cover featured a found photo of a depressing-looking lounge band (a Dead
Kennedys logo has been spliced on their drum set and skulls and
crossbones onto their instruments). Somehow, a member of the long-gone lounge
band came across the DKs LP and sued the band for using the photo
without permission; consequently, the LP was issued with the heads of the
band members cut off. When this didn't satisfy the lounge band, the photo
disappeared altogether.

Cherry Red, which owned UK and European rights to Fresh Fruit, issued
a red vinyl version of the LP, as well as licensing it out to dozens of small
foreign labels. When asked which ones, Biafra was able to name most from
these from memory. He warns, however, that many of the imported copies
floating around these days are pirates.

"Anything that comes in this country with 'Made in Italy' 'Made in Spain' or
'Made in Portugal' on it is a pirate pressing... Plastic Surgery
Disasters, In God We Trust, Inc. and Fresh Fruit were
licensed either to Base Records or Artisan in Italy, and as far as I know
those companies have since gone out of business. somebody still has some of
the master parts, ad has gone ahead and Xeroxed the covers, and put out
Clorox-bottle quality pressings, which are slipped over to a cut-out
distributor, the same one who was busted for bootlegging the Apple records
catalog in 1976, who then sells these for less than we can sell our own
records in our own country... and then stores that are too snooty to deal
independent distributors buy them from them, then jack it up to an import
price and rip off our people. None of the inserts come with them. As far as I
know, all the money's going to the underworld, from the Spanish, Portuguese
and Italian pressings." Buyer beware!

Fresh Fruit has only recently been reissued, on Biafra's own
Alternative Tentacles label; before that, the pirate pressings were often the
only one available. (The DKs had had a bad experience with IRS, and Fresh Fruit was the only LP which the group
could not retain the rights to. The other albums were all issued by
Alternative Tentacles, and remain in print.)

In 1981 the Too Drunk to Fuck single was issued, complete with a
peel-off sticker in the front to cover up with "offensive" title. The single
charted in the UK, despite a BBB ban. Weirdly enough, the song became among
college frat boys in the U.S., who often shoed up at the DKs shows.
Punks sometimes resented the Kennedys for attracting these outsiders to their
shows, but the DKs made up for it by going out of their way to support
the real punk scene by forcing promoters to book unusual underground bands as
openers, and insisting that the bands get paid reasonably well.